Figure 1.

The application of refutational reasoning to storylines for successively more constraining bounds on ECS. For a particular bound on ECS to hold it must be consistent with all the lines of evidence, here formulated in terms of physical statements related to some interpretation of data or some specific process, for example, cloud response to warming. The hypotheses most fruitful to test progressively narrower bounds are those that are marked by a yellow question mark. This illustration is meant to encourage, rather than substitute, a more thorough assessment.